Dodge City, Kansas, Queen of the Cowtowns, notorious in fact and fiction, started as a stopover on the Old Santa Fe Trail. The first settler of Dodge City asserted, "If you stood on the hill above Dodge City, there was traffic as far as you could see, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the Santa Fe Trail."
The Mountain Branch of the trail went west from Dodge City along the north bank of the Arkansas River into Colorado. For those willing to risk the dangers of waterless sand hills, a shorter route, the Cimarron Cutoff, crossed the river near Dodge City and went southwest to the Cimarron River, into the Oklahoma Panhandle, then west to Clayton, New Mexico and to Santa Fe.
Late afternoon, the temperature hovering around 100 degrees, I leave Dodge City on U.S. 56 that follows the Cimarron Cutoff of the old Santa Fe Trail. Through wheat and cattle country, U.S. 56 is interrupted only by a few wide spots in the road containing grain elevators, convenience stores, a few homes, and an occasional implement dealership. Montezuma, Copeland, Sublette, Satanta, and Moscow, the latter an apparent reference to settlers emigrating from the wheat country of Russia to the wheat country of Kansas.
A few miles south of Moscow, is the Hugoton Basin with its oil and gas wells. Early evening, sun still high during these June days, I stop at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Hugoton. The restaurant is crowded, mostly with Gringos. I judge this restaurant from good to good plus, but short of great.
The wind has finally died down as I hit the road and head west and a bit south to Elkhart in the far southwest corner of Kansas. Amidst lengthening shadows I cross into the Oklahoma Panhandle. The Panhandle consists of three counties: Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron. U.S. 56 nips the northwest corner of Texas County and leads to Boise City, county seat of Cimarron County, westernmost of the Panhandle.
At Boise City, I make a call to Michael and Kathryn at the U.S. Route 66 Motel in Tucumcari. It's a good thing I did, as Michael reserves his last room for me.
As darkness descends, the air is calm, and the temperature a comfortable dry mid-80s, I travel part way around the courthouse square of Boise City, and head west - across the New Mexico line toward Clayton in northeast New Mexico's high range country. I usually stop at the historic Eklund Hotel in Clayton for some green chile stew. Another time I need to get a little more history of the Eklund and Clayton's most notorious outlaw, Blackjack Ketchum. But this evening I just gas up and head south on N.M. 402, the 60-mile stretch down to U.S. 54.
It's a clear but moonless evening, so I can't see the herds of cattle and numerous windmills otherwise visible on this high range country. Within an hour I hit Nara Visa on U.S. 54. Then it's another stretch to Logan, and yet another to Tucumcari, once a favored stopover on old Route 66.
Michael greets me and has my room ready for me. It's good to see how he and Kathryn's efforts have paid off in bringing back to life one of Tucumcari's old motels that graced historic route 66.
I toss my gear into the room, open a can of Heilman's Special Export, and crank up my laptop. After answering a couple of e-mails, I look at my potential "Save the Post Office" column. I should have sent it off by now. It's close; but that draft still isn't the way I want it. I make some minor adjustments but it's still not right. I need to get it off tomorrow morning for sure.
Which reminds me, if I could render a single piece of advice to students with term paper assignments, it would be to write the first draft early, well ahead of when it's due. Then, let it sit. Ideas for content and organization will pop into your head subconsciously as you are doing other things, like daydreaming, waiting in line at a grocery store to buy 50 cents worth of stuff, or waking up in the middle of the night.
Reporters don't have that luxury, but students and op-ed columnists do.
It doesn't matter how rough or crude that first draft is. The important thing is to get your ideas down on paper. It's a lot easier to revise and reorganize a rough draft than it is to wait till the eleventh hour and panicksville. That said, I realize that advice to students usually goes in one ear and out the other.
I hit the sack and am out like a light. Sure enough, next morning I wake up groggy, but sentences are popping into my head. Why didn't I think of those before? I crawl out of bed, crank up the computer, and make some changes and additions to the piece - gotta make it readable.
I let it rest some more while I shower up. Refreshed, I go over it again, word for word, giving it a final tune-up. Yup, this is pretty much the way I want it. I could go over it a dozen more times and continually make minor adjustments. But at some point, you have to put a lid on it.
I send it off to Mary Jane with my usual combination of thoughts: "What did I leave out?" combined with a sense of accomplishment, "Hey, it's done - on to whatever comes next."
Next is coffee and a great breakfast at the Pow Wow Inn - huevos rancheros with that wonderful green chile sauce. It's a bright, crisp morning in Tucumcari, and time to head west and south to Las Cruces and the beautiful Mesilla Valley.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
The Mountain Branch of the trail went west from Dodge City along the north bank of the Arkansas River into Colorado. For those willing to risk the dangers of waterless sand hills, a shorter route, the Cimarron Cutoff, crossed the river near Dodge City and went southwest to the Cimarron River, into the Oklahoma Panhandle, then west to Clayton, New Mexico and to Santa Fe.
Late afternoon, the temperature hovering around 100 degrees, I leave Dodge City on U.S. 56 that follows the Cimarron Cutoff of the old Santa Fe Trail. Through wheat and cattle country, U.S. 56 is interrupted only by a few wide spots in the road containing grain elevators, convenience stores, a few homes, and an occasional implement dealership. Montezuma, Copeland, Sublette, Satanta, and Moscow, the latter an apparent reference to settlers emigrating from the wheat country of Russia to the wheat country of Kansas.
A few miles south of Moscow, is the Hugoton Basin with its oil and gas wells. Early evening, sun still high during these June days, I stop at a Mexican restaurant in downtown Hugoton. The restaurant is crowded, mostly with Gringos. I judge this restaurant from good to good plus, but short of great.
The wind has finally died down as I hit the road and head west and a bit south to Elkhart in the far southwest corner of Kansas. Amidst lengthening shadows I cross into the Oklahoma Panhandle. The Panhandle consists of three counties: Beaver, Texas, and Cimarron. U.S. 56 nips the northwest corner of Texas County and leads to Boise City, county seat of Cimarron County, westernmost of the Panhandle.
At Boise City, I make a call to Michael and Kathryn at the U.S. Route 66 Motel in Tucumcari. It's a good thing I did, as Michael reserves his last room for me.
As darkness descends, the air is calm, and the temperature a comfortable dry mid-80s, I travel part way around the courthouse square of Boise City, and head west - across the New Mexico line toward Clayton in northeast New Mexico's high range country. I usually stop at the historic Eklund Hotel in Clayton for some green chile stew. Another time I need to get a little more history of the Eklund and Clayton's most notorious outlaw, Blackjack Ketchum. But this evening I just gas up and head south on N.M. 402, the 60-mile stretch down to U.S. 54.
It's a clear but moonless evening, so I can't see the herds of cattle and numerous windmills otherwise visible on this high range country. Within an hour I hit Nara Visa on U.S. 54. Then it's another stretch to Logan, and yet another to Tucumcari, once a favored stopover on old Route 66.
Michael greets me and has my room ready for me. It's good to see how he and Kathryn's efforts have paid off in bringing back to life one of Tucumcari's old motels that graced historic route 66.
I toss my gear into the room, open a can of Heilman's Special Export, and crank up my laptop. After answering a couple of e-mails, I look at my potential "Save the Post Office" column. I should have sent it off by now. It's close; but that draft still isn't the way I want it. I make some minor adjustments but it's still not right. I need to get it off tomorrow morning for sure.
Which reminds me, if I could render a single piece of advice to students with term paper assignments, it would be to write the first draft early, well ahead of when it's due. Then, let it sit. Ideas for content and organization will pop into your head subconsciously as you are doing other things, like daydreaming, waiting in line at a grocery store to buy 50 cents worth of stuff, or waking up in the middle of the night.
Reporters don't have that luxury, but students and op-ed columnists do.
It doesn't matter how rough or crude that first draft is. The important thing is to get your ideas down on paper. It's a lot easier to revise and reorganize a rough draft than it is to wait till the eleventh hour and panicksville. That said, I realize that advice to students usually goes in one ear and out the other.
I hit the sack and am out like a light. Sure enough, next morning I wake up groggy, but sentences are popping into my head. Why didn't I think of those before? I crawl out of bed, crank up the computer, and make some changes and additions to the piece - gotta make it readable.
I let it rest some more while I shower up. Refreshed, I go over it again, word for word, giving it a final tune-up. Yup, this is pretty much the way I want it. I could go over it a dozen more times and continually make minor adjustments. But at some point, you have to put a lid on it.
I send it off to Mary Jane with my usual combination of thoughts: "What did I leave out?" combined with a sense of accomplishment, "Hey, it's done - on to whatever comes next."
Next is coffee and a great breakfast at the Pow Wow Inn - huevos rancheros with that wonderful green chile sauce. It's a bright, crisp morning in Tucumcari, and time to head west and south to Las Cruces and the beautiful Mesilla Valley.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
